


like seeing spiders running riot on your lover’s grave

by Youhavetolikebooksifpeopledontlikeyou



Category: Outer Banks (TV)
Genre: Angst, Child Abuse, Childhood Memories, Childhood Trauma, Eventual Romance, F/M, Gay JJ (Outer Banks), Homophobic Language, I'm Bad At Tagging, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, JJ (Outer Banks) Needs a Hug, John B is a Good Friend, Kooks (Outer Banks), Luke Maybank Being an Asshole, Luke Maybank's A+ Parenting, M/M, Non-Graphic Rape/Non-Con, Pogues (Outer Banks), Recreational Drug Use, Sad JJ (Outer Banks), but JJ is a better friend, i ship JJ/happiness, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-10
Updated: 2020-06-10
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:41:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24649642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Youhavetolikebooksifpeopledontlikeyou/pseuds/Youhavetolikebooksifpeopledontlikeyou
Summary: The boy who fell into the skyHad no one there to watch him cryHe looked at you with his empty eyes and said:“I’m doing you a favour, doing you a favour.”-Glimpses from the memory of JJ Maybank.Please enjoy, reader, the story of his life.
Relationships: JJ & John B. Routledge, JJ/John B. Routledge, JJ/Kiara (Outer Banks)
Comments: 18
Kudos: 91





	like seeing spiders running riot on your lover’s grave

**Author's Note:**

> PLEASE DON’T SKIP (because I don’t want any complaints in the comment section):
> 
> First and foremost, English it’s NOT my first language. Consequently, this story will probably be full of mistakes, grammar and spelling errors. 
> 
> This leads us to the second point. I need a beta reader.  
> Because as you will probably see, I suck in English and I desperately need someone who can check my grammar. I’m so full of ideas but it took me three weeks to decide to post this pathetic “thing”. I’m so afraid of this damn language barrier. 
> 
> Third point. This story is violent and graphic. There are some scene about child abuse that are described in detail. There’re also some rape reference, even if is only vaguely mentioned. Nevertheless, if it could disturbe you in any way please don’t read. I really mean it.
> 
> Fourth point. I decided (cause I can, yes) to change the characters ages. Because please Netflix, do you really think that I believe they are sixteen? When I was sixteen I looked more like Wheezie than Sarah.
> 
> See you at the end.

When JJ is five, his mother leaves.

It’s a rainy night, the woman put him in bed and tuck the covers.

She alway sings him lullaby, when thunder and lightning scare him.

_When his dad scares him._

“A-a-a, a-a-a,

byty sobie motti dwa.

A-a-a, kotki dwa,

szarobure...”

JJ’s mother is polish, her accent is soft and musical. JJ’s mother is beautiful. She has blonde hair that curls at the edge, she smells like cherry and has an unreal pale skin.

JJ’s father always reminds him that he has his mother’s eyes _(when he’s so full of pills to be sentimental)._

“Keep singing it, kochanie, when you’re afraid and I’m not with you. My spirit will reach you and protect you.”

“How, mommy?”

“Because I will always be here, kochanie.” she says to him, with the sweetest voice he has ever heard, pointing to his heart.

_Days weeks months and years later, JJ will wonder if she didn’t know that was her last night with him. That she was going to leave him._

The boy hears the front door open and he knows his father’s back home.

It’s Friday so Luke must have been with Barry’s dad to get one of those little orange bottles that JJ always finds scattered around the house.

Barry’s one of JJ’s classmates in elementary school.

One day the blonde boy asked him what those little orange bottles are and the other kid repeated what his dad once told him:

“People love them, Barry. They would do anything to get their hands on them. But they’ll drive you crazy, eventually.”

_(“Don’t touch them kochanie. Never touch them because they are so so bad, sweetheart.”)_

There’re screams, that night. JJ thinks that he’ll remember those sounds for the rest of his life, burned in his memories. Hunting his nightmares.

Little JJ has a hard time figuring out what’s going on in the other room. Later in his life, he’ll recognise the sound of broken bottles against the wall, strong hands on fragile skin, body against every surface in that goddamned house.

That night’s also the first time he had paint in his hair.

_Not the last one, though._

“What have you done?!”

These are the last words JJ hears his mother say. Echo in the house, in the air. _In his head._

_What have you done what have you done what have you done_

(JJ’ll never find out what his father did to send his mother away.)

(Maybe one day he’ll stop asking himself.)

(Asking himself why his mother didn’t take him away.)

(Why she didn’t say goodbye. Why she left him dealing with all the pain.)

_A-a-a, a-a-a,_

_byty sobie motti dwa._

_A-a-a, kotki dwa,_

_szarobure..._

-

When JJ is eight, he has bruises on his skin.

One night his father comes home later than usual. JJ has learned in the hard way that, when his father stumbles on his feet and mumbles incomprehensible words, he must be scared.

He must run far far away.

_(He never did, until years later he understood that, on those nights, his father could even kill him.)_

The boy tries to get to his room, as quietly as possible. Maybe, just maybe, if he doesn’t catch his attention, Luke would forget he is even there. He crawls half the way to his room, his head down and his eyes focus on the floor in order to not injure himself with some of the sharp pieces of broken bottles that his father, as always, doesn’t bother to pick up from the floor. Then, when JJ thinks he’s less that three feet from the door that can save him, Luke’ shoes enter in his field of view.

“What the hell are you doing, boy?”

“I... I am-”

“Are you stuttering? I didn’t think I raised a pussy.”

_Weak. So fucking weak._

Luke grabs JJ’s hair and lifts him off the floor. He brings his face close to his son. His breath smells like beer.

_JJ would have liked to smell the cherry gum on his mom’s breath again, when she approached him to kiss his forehead._

_A-a-a, a-a-a,_

_byty sobie motti dwa._

_A-a-a, kotki dwa,_

_szarobure..._

“Dad, please dad you are hurting me, please-”

“God, you are so like your mother. Weak like your mother. That bitch...”

He feels like he’s thrown across the room. It’s probably no more than few feet.

JJ stumbles back till his back touch the wall behind him. His blues eyes fill with tears.

“Are you crying? Men. don’t. cry.” he says, growling.

_Sometimes his father reminds him of a bear. But not the bear that you can see in the cartoons, which eats honey liking his paws. No. More like the one you can see in the documentary and the voiceover tells you that a beast like that can maul you in two bites._

The day after, JJ goes to school limping a little and with an arm around his chest, as if he’s hugging himself.

For John B, that’s an unusual behaviour.

“What have you done...?”

He asks JJ, with raised eyebrows and a worried, cutie face.

Since his mother left, nobody had worried about him.

_(And for a brief and fleeting moment, JJ contemplates the idea of telling John B everything.)_

“Oh, dude! That was sick! You should’ve been there, you don’t know what did you miss. An adventure , John B. So, I was in the boat with my dad, follow me? The Phantom, man. That boat can go amazingly fast, if she want. Best boat in the world, John B. My word.

Anyway, at some point my dad took a fish that seems like a shark, I’m deadly serious. It fought like a shark, at least. The point is that I helped my father reeling this big fish, ‘cause it fought, fuck. And then.. The fishing pole hit me in my ribs. I have a terrible bruise and I think something is broken.”

“Let me see!” he’s excited and JJ flinches imperceptibly.

“Sure.” and he lifts his shirt, revealing some of the bruises Luke left him the night before. “Look at this, mate. The best dinner ever, though. It was worth it.”

“But are you ok?”

“It’s nothing, bud. I’m totally fine.” he say, shaking his blonde head and giving him the best smile.

_John B realises only four years later how his friend’s a great liar._

_He never forgives himself, though. Not even decades later. He’ll blame himself for JJ’s bruises and broken bones until his last breath._

-

When JJ is twelve, he knocks on John B door in the middle of the night.

This is the first time. Not the last one, though.

_(What have you done what have you done what have you done)_

John B’s dad is a good man. Period.

_(Sometimes Big John reminds him of a bear. The bear that you can see in cartoons, which eats honey licking his paws.)_

_(He seems like a real father.)_

He brings his son and JJ to fish almost every weekend, he feeds them peanut butter sandwich and teaches him how to tie the bait on the hook.

He’s patient and relaxed, something that JJ’s not used to.

If he had learned something in his short life it was that the grown-ups tended _not_ to bear his presence for more that five minutes.

Nothing to be sad about, anyway. When some adult gets too close to him, he always has that feeling of not be able to breathe. He feels trapped. And in danger.

The kid’s always moving, always talking about everything and nothing and his eyes shot from one to another thing in half a second.

He always throws himself into the water and drags John B with him.

ADHD. One of JJ’s teachers explains it at his father one day, after calling him and getting him to school ‘cause his son can’t stay sit still for more that five minutes. ‘Cause he is always in detention because of this.

_He never said his father why he comes back late every afternoon. Not that Luke ever noticed, of course. But now don’t tell him that he takes a detention at least one time a day seems a terrible and stupid idea to JJ._

Luke wasn’t very happy about the little chat with the school’s psychologist. That’s why now JJ’s all drenched in rain in front of the Château.

“Kid, what have you done?!” the boy flinches a little bit.

It’s Big John that opens the door and JJ curses himself for the bad idea that he just had.

“Hi, well so I... nothing, I was just thinking, just thinking that... but doesn’t matter. Sorry for the inconvenience, sir. Say hi to John B from me.”

_What have you done what have you done whathaveyoudonewhathaveyoudonewhat_

“Come back here, kid. I won’t let you go away in this conditions”

_(JJ will never know if he referred to the storm or the bruises.)_

Then he steps back and instructs him to “come inside”.

“Dad? Who’s there?”

“It’s JJ.” his father says, and John B runs towards him with that expression that belongs only to Christmas Days. An expression that fades as soon as he notices the black eye and the split lip.

“Take care of him, ok? I’ve some work to do.” Big John says “And put some ice on it.” concludes, pointing at JJ’s eye. Then he closes the door behind his back and disappears into his office.

_(After that night, Big John never mentioned his bruises nor asked him who beaten him. Anyway, it wasn’t hard to imagine, ‘cause everybody knew_ what kind of man _Luke was.)_

John B takes care of him, from that day onwards. Every time JJ appears in front of the Château covered in blood.

(They were not few.)

Never Big John, though. Well, he’s hardly present for his son. JJ can’t expect him to take care of him too.

Anyway, the blonde boy doesn’t need anything but some ice and a bed to sleep in for the night.

_(And a shoulder to cry on._

_And a body to curls up to stop shaking._

_And fingers through his hair when he can’t breathe when he feels his father fists against his skin his hands around his neck his kicks against his ribs his-_

_And he needs John B.)_

Some ice and a bed. This two things and nothing more. Really.

_A-a-a, a-a-a,_

_byty sobie motti dwa._

_A-a-a, kotki dwa,_

_szarobure..._

“Do you wanna talk about it?” John B asks. He put a pack of frozen spinach over the big bruise on his chest and a Coca-Cola on his eye.

There are tons of other bruises but John B doesn’t have a lot of ice, so he just takes care of the big and most worrying ones.

“There’s nothing to talk about.”

“JJ, I think-”

“Please, John B. I’m tired, I just want to get some rest and behave like nothing happened.”

He doesn’t respond, continuing to run his fingers though his friend’s blonde hair. JJ’s laying on the couch, his head leaning on his friend’s legs, chilling. From this position, John B can see his face.

A big bruise is blossoming on his right cheek. He already has a black eye and a split lip. Slightly above his left eyebrow there’s a cut from which John B had removed a glass splinter, a few minutes earlier.

But is JJ’s neck that attracts the most attention. Purple marks of strong fingers. These wouldn’t fade before a week, they both know. _People is gonna ask questions, they both know._

“Miss Davies called him to school, right after the last lesson. That’s why I didn’t come in detention with you. She said I have ADHD.”

“You have AIDS?”

“No, idiot.” he can’t hold back a laugh. His ribs send him a sharp pain.

“Don’t laugh, or your ribs’ll never heal.”

“ADHD. That’s why I can’t sit still. She said him I’m hyperactive. And she said it’s the reason why I’m always in detention. I never told my father when I was taking a detention. Well, he didn’t notice that I always came home late from school so... why tell him, right? That seemed stupid to me. Now it seems a lot more stupid, actually.”

“Yeah, that was a really bad idea, dude. I thought you were smarter.” John B’s trying to cheer up the atmosphere. This is the only thing he’s good at, in these situations.

_JJ wouldn’t agree, but he never told him._

“Yep, well... when we came back home Luke started drinking and took those stupid pills, the ones he buys from Barry’s dad. Anyway, didn’t happen anything for like four hours and then... he exploded. I don’t think I ever seen him angrier before.”

JJ tells the story with the same voice he used four years before, when he told him about the Phantom and the shark. A story that was a lie, now it’s evident for the boy.

“I thought he was going to kill me.” he whispers to himself, with almost no voice. But John B is near enough to hear him.

_(JB spent the next two week convincing himself that he misunderstood._

_Then he was obliged to ask his father to bring him to JJ’s house in order to check on him, since he hadn’t gone to school for three days._

_When he saw his friend in a pool of his own blood, he understood that Luke could really kill his son, one day.)_

“He loves me, in his own way. It’s just... he kind of doesn’t know how to love. Maybe this is the only way he knows.”

And there it is. Again. This voice, this cheerful tone that John B already hates but, anyway, he has to endure. Because this is the only way JJ knows (has) to talk about it.

_(Eventually, the blonde stopped using that voice when he talked about his father. It was replaced by a flat and emotionless tone. As if he had got used to it.)_

_(Maybe John B hated it even more. ‘Cause “used to” wasn’t the feeling that you normally associate with “be beaten up by your father.”.)_

_(At the end, even lying became_ tiring _for JJ.)_

“If he doesn’t love me, he would have left me long time ago. Like mom. Right, John B?”

“If you say so, JJ...”

-

When JJ is sixteen, his father leaves him for three month.

Best moths of his life, thank you very much.

Luke goes away in the morning. JJ finds a note and five dollars on the kitchen table, after he comes back from school.

‘Gtg. Probably I’ll come back in few months. Leave you money’

What have you done? What have _I_ done?

His first reaction is to laugh. Laugh until his eyes are filling with tears.

_(His first reaction was to cry. Cry until his eyes had no more tears to drop.)_

Laugh until his stomach hurts and he has to sit on the floor.

_(Cry until he couldn’t stand up and he had to sit on the floor.)_

He covers his face with his hand, trying to stop chuckling but without success.

_(He covered his face with his hand, trying to stop sobbing but without success.)_

This is the best news he has in, what? Three years?

_(That was the worst news he had in eleven years.)_

His father went away and left him with five fuckin’ dollars. Did his father think that they will last for “a few months”?

He can’t stop laughing ( _crying_ ) at the thought that at some point a part of his twisted father’s mind really thought that his son could survive “a few” fuckin’ “months” with only five dollars.

Probably an other part hoped that, coming back home, he would find his son died form starving.

And that makes he laugh ( _cry_ ) even more ‘cause everyone know that JJ has the surviving spirit of a cockroach. Everybody but his father, apparently.

_A-a-a, a-a-a,_

_byty sobie motti dwa._

_A-a-a, kotki dwa,_

_szarobure..._

It’s the best thing that could have happened. He never felt so much happy, so much free. Like a weight on his stomach suddenly disappeared, like he can finally breathe for the first time in so long.

_(It was the worst thing that could had happened. He never felt so much desperate, so much terrorised. Like a weight on his stomach suddenly appeared, like he could no more breathe.)_

_(JJ never admitted to himself that his father absence was like a huge black hole in the middle of his living room. Something that not only he could not ignore, but seemed like it was trying to attract everything inside itself.)_

He doesn’t told anyone, initially. It’s not like anyone can be interested in a sixteen years old boy abandoned by himself, of course. Not in the Outer Banks, at least. John B, Pope and Kie only find out that his father is gone after a week, when JJ invites them to sleep at his place.

It was like one of those nights that you convince yourself you’ll never forget for the rest of your fuckin’ life. While you’re living it. Then, the day after, you can’t remember a goddamn thing apart from the feels that, whatever happened, what epic.

JJ asks to Kie’s father if he can work for him, for a while. Initially, he was reluctant and he told him that he would never let a minor works for him.

_That he would never let a Maybank works for him. He never said that, but JJ knew it. Nobody would._

After a week the man mysteriously reevaluates his decision and hires him for four days a week. Two hundred dollars per month and free access to the leftover from the kitchen. For the boy, this is the best that could ever happen to him.

_(Only a few years later JJ would eventually find out that Mr. Carrera hired him only after he found out that the boy also asked to work for a man in Figure Eight. An man that, as rumours said, liked young and desperate boys.)_

_(JJ never had the opportunity to thank him, though. For a lot of reasons.)_

This are the best three months of his life. John B, Kie and Pope almost live at JJ’s place and for one time, one fuckin’ time, he isn’t terrorised at the idea of coming back home.

He goes to school (rarely), to work and he goes surfing with his friends. He lays back on the beach until the sun drown in the ocean.

He cooks dinner for his friends and himself, they crash to Kooks’s parties and smoke so much that they can’t feel the passage of time.

JJ kisses Kie, one night in the beach. Under the stars.

“What have you done...?” she asks him whispering, with her wet lips a few inches away from his. He can still feel the taste of sand and salt on them.

_What have you done what have you done what have you done._

“I don’t know, but I felt it was the right thing to do.”

“But the rule...”

“I don’t give a shit about rules. You didn’t noticed?”

“That’s exactly why you _always_ put yourself in troubles, JJ.”

“That’s how you consider what just happened? A trouble? A mistake?”

“I don’t know, I’m too high to think. But I liked it and it must mean something, right?”

‘Cause it’s alway so damn easy for JJ fucks with every good look tourist he can put his eyes on. Girls who don’t know what he hides under that perfect tanned skin, behind those beautiful blue eyes.

Girls who don’t know what kind of a mess he’s, how much fucked his mind is. And they don’t really care, obviously, ‘ _cause it’s just for one night, right?_ Right.

But she’s Kiara.

The same Kiara who saw him in his best moments. Who saw him ride the highest waves and surfing in a storm. Who never says no to a blunt or a beer with him. Who makes him laugh so hard and hugs him when she’s scared.

The same Kiara who saw him in his worst moments. Who saw him start a fight with some Kooks for a stupid and useless reason, only for demonstrate himself that he’s worth something, that he’s not weak, that he’s a man.

_Weak. So fucking weak._

The same Kiara who saw him so full of anger that three Kooks were needed in order to keep him still and beat the shit out of him without risking being sent right to the hospital.

Who saw him emptied of all emotion until he’s unable to get out of bed.

And maybe that’s exactly the problem.

She can see in JJ the little weak boy that can’t stand up for himself.

The same JJ that Luke see.

He’s pathetic. Pathetic pathetic pathetic _oh, so fuckin’ pathetic._

_(“How can you live with yourself, boy?”)_

JJ kissed Kie, one night in the beach. Under the stars.

But he was too high. If anyone ask, he doesn’t remember how it was. Good? Bad? Sexy? Embarrassing? He can’t remember, but what he does know is that he never felt better.

_(He convinced himself, ‘cause he certainly couldn’t admit that fall asleep curled up next to John B while he draw imaginary circles on his back, that was the best he ever felt.)_

Anyway, he and Kie never talk about that kiss. They let that moment live just in their memories.

No Pogue-on-Pogue-macking.

-

When JJ is eighteen, he really believes he would die.

Working for Kie’s father is no longer enough, if JJ wants to keep a decent lifestyle and his father habits. The same father that had been fired, unsurprisingly. Things that happen when beers and pills become beers, pills, whiskey and cocaine. Moreover, they’re expensive.

So, JJ is forced to accept a job from an man that lives in Figure Eight. Nothing that take too much time, but he’s too conceited and rich and arrogant to take care of his boats without being physically affected.

JJ has to do nothing more that what he already does for the HMS Pogue on a daily basis. But he’s paid almost one thousand dollars per month.

_(Soon he would find out that clean the boat and cut the grass weren’t the only tasks he had to do.)_

_(But he was oh, so weak. He always was. His father always told him.)_

It’s Saturday night and JJ come home later than usual. He stopped at the Chateau ‘cause it’s pay day and his friends thought they should celebrate.

JJ didn’t feel like partying at all. Those money burned in his pocket. If he could afford it, he would give them to the bonfire flames.

_(They make him feel dirty. That kind of dirt that you can’t just wash away from the clothes. Or from his skin.)_

_What have you done what have you done what have you done._

When he comes back home, JJ finds his father laying on the couch with a beer in his hand. He was waiting him, JJ can feel it.

“I need some money.”

“Then find a job.”

“What did you say, little shit?”

“I don’t have money.”

“Do you think I’m stupid or what? I know that you work for that cocky perverted in Figure Eight. And I also know he pays you a lot for yer _services_.”

“What do you mean?!” JJ thinks his heart lost a beat. Like the blood in his body stopped to listen.

“Why? Do you really think I don’t know? Do you think I don’t know what people say about you?”

_(JJ knew oh, so damn well what people whispered about him. What he did not know was that his father had, in fact, heard about those rumours. It seemed that Luke Maybank had ears, after all.)_

“You have nothing to say?! No, of fuckin’ course you don’t, little bitch.”

_Little bitch little bitchlittlebitchlittlebitchbitchbitchbitch-_

He wants to laugh ‘cause people talk and talk _and talk_ behind his back and none of them know a shit about how it feels to not eat for three days and can’t even pay the bills in order to have electricity at home and-

But yeah, he’s the little bitch and _God knows_ if he would beat the shit out of that fucking Kook who started this rumour, whoever he’s. He’s gonna rip his head off.

Luke gets up from the couch and approaches his son. For his part, JJ is staring at the floor. His father’s like an animal and looking him in the eyes is tantamount to challenge him.

And this is the _last_ thing the boy wants, for _God_ _sake_.

The fist comes without warning, hitting his face. He turns to one side. His ears whistles and the pain that exploded in his cheek deadens everything. He doesn’t fight back. _He never does_. Even though he’s probably physically stronger than his dad. But inside he’s weak. _Weak_ _weak_ _weak_.

Luke grabs his hair and lifts his face, then he punches him again. JJ falls on the floor. He’s almost sure he has his nose broken. He tries to get up but his father forces him again to the ground with a kick.

“Do you think it’s normal that my son gets fucked by the man he works for?!” he keeps hitting him. More and more _and more_.

“Dad. Dad _please_ -”

“DO YOU THINK IT’S NORMAL?! Fuckin’ faggot...”

He screams, after bending over in order to bring his face closer to his son, still on the ground.

_Weak_. _So fucking weak._

“I’m sorry.” he whispers.

He’s going to kill him, JJ knows. Luke keeps kicking him and he can feel the reality fade away. For a brief moment he looks into his dad eyes, but he can’t see nothing inside. So he closes his.

It isn’t very clear to JJ _what_ he has to be sorry for, but he usually just assumes his existence is an afford to him. Anyway, this is what his father wants to hear right now.

Luke grabs the boy’s hair and slams his face against the floor, two times. Now JJ’s sure that his nose’s broken. He can feel the taste of blood in his mouth.

His father keeps hitting him, kicking his ribs until there’s nothing more to break. JJ doesn’t drop a single tear. When he cries his father gets angrier and he learned long time ago how to be numb. Tears belong only to the Chateau and John B.

It never seems to stop. JJ tries to space out and imagine himself with his friends swimming in the ocean, the last time he surfed with them. If he only knew it was the last time, his last wave...

“You suck me off too, if I pay you?”

No. _No no no nonononono please please don’t-_

_A-a-a, a-a-a,_

_byty sobie motti dwa._

_A-a-a, kotki dwa,_

_szarobure..._

JJ doesn’t remember a lot of what happened after that. He removed it as deeply as possible, like all the other times.

What he does remember (burned in his memories) is the way he couldn’t breathe. The feeling of his father’s hands through his hair forcing him down and down, preventing him from breathe.

_He thought he would have died. Just like that, easily. Chocked by his own father._

JJ’ll alway remember the look in John B eyes when (an imprecise time later, maybe even a day later) he came to the Maybank house in order to took him to the Chateau. A glance that could look inside him, behind every lie and the pretences.

“Christ, JJ... what have you done?”

_(Oh John B, you have no idea of what I’ve done.)_

He spends the next two weeks at Big John home, accurately avoiding the memories of that night.

Kie, Pope, John B and JJ smoke weed like never before, every day all day long. They go surfing and to parties. The blonde boy’s almost always high, his mind’s empty and he never felt better before.

Like the silence after an explosion. Surreal and terrible. Inevitable.

On a Sunday afternoon, while he and John B are waiting for the other two, spooning on the couch and looking at some stupid cartoons, JJ decides that he deserves to know the truth, after all.

“It’s true? People really believe I let myself been fucked by the man I work for on the weekends?”

“Dunno, bro. You know I don’t care about gossip.”

“Cut the bullshit, please. I’m not in the mood.”

_He’s so fucking high that he doesn’t really have a mood. At all._

“Topper and Rafe spread that rumour. They only did it to annoy you, you know that. I think they’re still mad at you for that time you asked your cousin to sell them rosemary instead of weed.” and he giggles at the memories.

“People believe them, though. _My father_ believe them, at least.”

“Really?”

JJ shakes his head, rubbing his face on John B Hawaiian shirt. He looks like a cat.

He likes JB smell. Sun and ocean.

“Do you believe them? Kie and Pope?”

“Oh please! None of us could never believe a story like that. Probably yer father is the only one that believe them, in The Cut.”

It’s a lie and JJ knows it. But John B has alway been naive. Kie and Pope too.

_On the other hand, Maybank’s the best liar in the world._

“Thanks, John B.”

“For what?”

“Letting me stay here. Everything.”

John B strokes his fingers through JJ’s blonde hair and leaves a soft kiss on his forehead.

“A-a-a, a-a-a,

byty sobie motti dwa.

A-a-a, kotki dwa,

szarobure...”

He sings him soft, one hand curled in his air, rocking back and forth, back and forth.

“You sing it with a tremendous accent, John B.”

“Maybe I haven't had the best teacher. And by the way, you don’t speak polish so how can you judge?”

JJ punches him on the arm.

-

When JJ is twenty, Big John disappears.

“Stop treating me like a child, ok? Or like I’m crazy.”

“I wouldn’t do it but you are acting like you’re crazy!”

“STOP THAT.”

John B is screaming. JJ hates when people scream at him. They remind him of his father.

“I’m just trying to make you see reason, ‘cause lately it seems like you can’t do it by yourself! John B you have to-”

“Shut up.”

_(“Shut up, boy. I don’t wanna hear you cry, it’s that clear?”)_

“-accept the idea that your dad is dead, bro. ‘Cause if you don’t, it’ll tear you apart.”

“Shut the fuck up.”

_(“Shut the fuck up. Close that filthy mouth of yours!”)_

“Dude, listen-”

“You don’t know what it’s like to have the person closest to you vanish and have no idea of what happened!”

John B says, grabbing JJ by his shirt and slamming him against the wall.

_(That’s not true that’s not true let me go let me go please just-)_

“So stop giving me advices about how to deal with it ‘cause first of all: there’s nothing to deal with and secondly: I can’t believe you of all people give me advice since how you deal with your own shit.”

_(Let me go let me go letmegoletmegoletmego I beg you)_

JJ closes his eyes, waiting for a fist that never come.

_Weak. So fucking weak._

“ _Please_.” It’s nothing more that a whisper, with almost no voice. John B probably wouldn’t hear it if he isn’t so close to his scared face.

JJ’s _begging_.

JB let him go as if he got burned, immediately stepping back.

JJ slides down the wall until he sits on the floor, his head between his knees and his trembling hands through his blonde hair. He’s breathing fast. He’s almost having a panic attack.

“Man, shit... I’m so so sorry, I-” John B says, trying to approach his friend that, however, flinches away from him, like a trapped animal.

“Don’t!- Touch. Me.” He got so chocked up, misty-eyed. John B is nauseated.

_Truth is, he doesn’t really see John B in front of him. He knows it’s him, but he sees Luke instead._

“Ok, ok. I don’t get close. Just, please, breath. Alright? It’s me, it’s just me. I won’t hurt you, I promise. Breath with me...”

A few minutes pass. _They seems hours, though._

“I’m fine.” He can breathe, at least. “Just, don’t come near me, please. I need some space.”

John B thinks the only smart thing to do in this situation is to go outside. Leave the Chateau for his friend, so he won’t feel in danger or trapped.

_(JJ wanted JB to hug him, like he used to do when he came from his house covered in blood. To run a hand through his blonde hair until he shivered.)_

_(You told him to go away,_ idiot.)

After ten minutes JJ joins his friend in the porch, with a cigarette hovering between his lips and puffy eyes.

“I’m sorry, bro. I acted like a total asshole. I’m sor-”

JJ doesn’t let him finish the sentence, assuring him with a shrug that everything is fine. He offers JB a cigarette, sitting next to him.

They stay in silence for a while, both lose in their thoughts. Maybe both tormented by senses of guilt.

_(JJ, for sure, was dying of shame. Fuck, he acted like a goddamn crybaby. He was weak, so weak.)_

“When she-” he doesn’t know where to start. He doesn’t really know _what_ to say, let alone _how_ to say it.

_He doesn’t know how to not look more pathetic than he already does._

“When my mom left, I thought... yeah, you know... I thought that she was going to come back. Not soon, maybe, but eventually... maybe. Even if only for take me away with her.”

_Some nights, when he hears his father’s heavy steps coming into his room, he still hopes. He hopes that she’ll come back and take him out of that Hell._

“JJ, you know you don’t... you don’t have to tell me, if you don’t want.”

“Shut up. Please, let me explain.”

“Yeah, sure...”

“You know, I alway hoped that she would come back to me. And well, if I think about those days maybe I wish somebody told me... I wish there was someone who slammed reality in my face... someone who could told me that she was gone, for _fucking_ ever. Maybe I wouldn’t have spend all those years crying. But at the end I got over it, didn’t I?”

_No. But that’s fine. Right?_

_(No, but there’s nothing you can do about it. You’re weak.)_

“You acted like a friend, JJ. I was just an asshole. I’m sorry, really. But all this... ‘situation’... it drive me crazy and sometimes I’m not myself and just wish everything would return as before. Dunno. God, I’m so fucked up, am I?”

“You’ve always been fucked up, dude. We’re all like that. We’re Pogues.”

That night JJ and John B sleep together, both curl up in JB bed like when they were ten. Like when they were too young for a too cruel world. _They still are, kind of._

That night JJ thinks that he’s never gonna leave John B side, for sure. ‘Cause he owes his life, literally. For every time JB kept him together, even when he was falling apart.

For every time he picked up the boy from the ground when, covered in blood and bruises, Luke kicked him out because he couldn’t stand his sight.

For every time he stroked his blonde hair, when JJ could stop sobbing ‘cause God, what have I done to deserve this shitty life?

For every time he put his hand on his shoulder and dragged him away when he was so fuckin’ close to kill the latest Kook that asked him if it’s true that he sucks his boss dick.

_(“Really, JJ? Now you let that man fuck you for a job? Jesus, I didn’t think you could fall so low. But in the end we all know where you are from, don’t we?”)_

That night JJ turns over in bed and leaves a soft kiss on John B’s lips. He’s impulsive, stupid and terribly naive. He curses himself in the exact moment he does it.

His heart starts beating faster, and then losing beat.

As alway, he managed to ruin everything.

“What have you done...?” asks John B, in a whisper.

“Sorry, I... I’m so sorry, I don’t know what I was thinking about. I go away, of course. Sorry again, I shouldn’t-”

But John B doesn’t let him out of bed. He draws him back to himself. JJ decides that this is the best time of his life.

_(This is what JJ hoped would happen. Truth is, he didn’t have the courage to do it. That night, JJ turned over in bed and closed his eyes so hard that he saw red spots.)_

_(Weak. So fucking weak.)_

-

Then came Agatha, that bitch. And everything went to hell.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you liked it. Let me know in the comment or leave a kudos, if you want. Thank you so much.  
> The title is from a BMTH song  
> The summary song is from “Despicable” by grandson.  
> The lullaby’s from The Goldfinch (you should read it, believe me) and I’m not polish so I’m sorry if there are some spelling errors.


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